


loud hands, warm hearts

by Dubiousculturalartifact (222Ravens)



Category: Check Please! (Webcomic)
Genre: Ficlet, Fluff, M/M, Past Kent Parson/Jack Zimmermann, Pre-Relationship, Stimming, autistic characters, but not kind to Kent Parson, internalized ableism, loud hands, not kind to Kent Parson, quiet hands, references to
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-03-10
Updated: 2017-03-10
Packaged: 2018-10-02 09:11:53
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 620
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10214246
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/222Ravens/pseuds/Dubiousculturalartifact
Summary: Jack catches himself, once.





	

**Author's Note:**

  * For [iridescentOwl](https://archiveofourown.org/users/iridescentOwl/gifts).



> inspired by a convo with @iridescentowl. Jack Zimmerman is autistic and so is Eric ‘Bitty’ Bittle, thank you, have a nice day

Jack catches himself, once.

They’re the only two people in the equipment room, everyone else just out the door, about to head out onto the ice. Jack was taping his stick, while Bitty had lingered to talk to one of the coaches, and then been slow getting his gear.

Jack was examining his stick, just finishing off taping it, and he’s got the tape in his hand, and he’s spinning it over and over in his hands. He's stuck in thought. Enough that he forgets himself, lets himself just  _be_ , for a moment, forgetting that Bitty is even there. The rest of the room feels a little far removed, a bit out of place from where he is. Bitty's tuneless humming and movement a comfortable background, rather than an unpleasant .

Then there’s a sharper sound, a clatter. Jack looks up, to see Bitty's dropped his phone on the ground by mistake, the headphones tangling up at his skates. Bitty dives down to pick them up, and makes eye-contact with Jack as he straightens. His eyes flicker idly to Jack’s hand, catching the movement, and gives Jack a soft, friendly sort of smile.

He stills his hand, abruptly self-conscious. Bitty was just smiling at him, like there was nothing odd at all, but the smile fades a little bit, when he stops.

“Lord, I’m the worst fidgeter when I’ve got something on my mind,” Bitty says, and it doesn’t seem like a judgment. Just sharing, and letting Jack know that it’s alright, if he wants to talk.

“Just thinking over the plays.” Jack says, looking down at the roll of tape, looking away from Bitty. His hands are still, now, holding it tightly.

“Do you need to go over some of them with anyone? You can bounce them off me, if you want. Or just quiet. Don’t mind either way.” Bitty suggests, gentle as anything.  
A few moments he’s forgotten about springs to mind. Like a scene from a room like this. Right before a game, not that long before everything had fallen apart. When it had been just him and Parse, and Parse had seen him doing the same thing, with his hands.

Had folded his hand over Jack’s, taken the tape away. “Stop worrying.” Parse had said, and held his hand, when Jack had tried to extricate it. And so he'd stopped. He'd tried to keep his hands quieter, except everything inside his brain had just gotten louder. But he'd done it anyway, and kept doing it, kept avoiding moving his hands like that, because then Parse would get frustrated. Tell him he was worrying, get him to stop.

It had been… It hadn't been mean-spirited, it hadn’t. But it wasn’t _right_ , it wasn’t what he’d needed in the moment, any of those times. He’d stopped the fidget anyway, though, because it felt like Parse should have been right, like that was the way he was supposed to be.

There’d been a lot of that, back then. Him fitting into the ‘supposed to’s, squeezing himself into that, until it all cracked and he couldn’t hold it together anymore.

It’s not like that now. He likes whatever this is, a lot more.

“Quiet’s good, I think.” Jack says. "We've got to be on the ice soon, anyway, so..."

“Quiet it is.” Bitty says, and starts to put his headphones back into his ears. "But. If you do ever want to talk, or just..."

"Thanks, Bitty." Jack nods. In response, Bitty smiles at him again, still soft. Turns his music back on, and moves his own hands in time to the song.

Jack watches, and lets the roll of tape spin in his hand again, thinking about something else entirely, now.

**Author's Note:**

> comments are always welcome, or come yell at me on tumblr about autistic Bitty & autistic Jack, dubiousculturalartifact.tumblr.com


End file.
